


Imprisoned

by Saharuriot18



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Escape, Prison, Prisoner of War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 03:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saharuriot18/pseuds/Saharuriot18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wheeljack has been captured by the Decepticons and is given a nice tour of their prison facilities. Unfortunately there are a lot of residents to greet him there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imprisoned

"You, you won't get away with this! Optimus and his team are going to crush you and break me out before you know it!" Wheeljack growled at his captor.

"Oh would you shut up! Lousy autobot" Starscream grumbled. "Your friends have other things to be worrying about besides your sorry plating."

With one servo grasping Wheeljack's upper arm Starscream led him deep into an old, dried up energon mine. It was dank and cold and the chill just got worse the deeper and deeper they went.

Down, down, down. Wheeljack felt like he was in that human book. The one with the white rabbit who was constantly worrying about being late. He snorted at the thought. Just two mechs going down the rabbit hole. Only one of them happened to be cuffed and battle damaged while being led to, what was most probably, his certain doom.

The entire trip was quite eerie at best. The mine was obviously deserted. There wasn't a spark in sight. But, there was that feeling. The one you get when you just know someone's watching. Wheeljack couldn't help but take a sweep of his surroundings for the umpteenth time. Nope, still no Decepti-creeps.

Finally the path they were following stopped descending and leveled out into a long hallway. The floor and walls became metal beneath their feet. 'Strange.' Wheeljack thought, 'It looks like cybertronian alloy. But, that's not possible. The last of this stuff was used up early in the war.' The hallway ended in a locked door that Starscream quickly bypassed with an access ping.

Wheeljack stopped in his tracks, tugging Starscream back as he did. The sight before him horrified him to his spark. There was a large, flat courtyard like space before him. But built into the walls on all sides were cells. Looking up he could see stairways up to a second and third and fourth story of even more cells. Just the sight of such obvious captivity and cruelty could stop a normal mech in his tracks, but Wheeljack was no normal mech. He was stronger than most. What had stopped him in his tracks were the occupants of these cells.

Autobots. So many of them. So many that he had not seen this many autobots in one place since the beginnings of the war.

Friends. So many faces he could recognize. So many bots that he had fought beside at one time or another.

"So I see you've noticed our prizes" Starscream boasted, smiling. It was not an expression that looked good on him by any definition. "We've been collecting them since the first orns of the war. Not that those mechs are even still alive. But I must admit," he leaned in to Wheeljack's audio and whispered, "It warms my spark to see the ones we still have here."

Before Wheeljack could think of a response or even growl Starscream pulled him forward roughly causing him to stumble. Even though he desperately wanted to glare at his captor until he melted from the intensity of it, Wheeljack could not help but look away and turn his head back and forth as they moved on. Searching out as many recognizable faces as he could.

Hoist. Seaspray. FirstAid. Trailbreaker. Springer. Perceptor.

The list just grew and grew the more he looked around. One bot to a cell. Ten guard drones to every floor of cells. Hundreds and hundreds of cells.

Starscream hauled Wheeljack towards a pair of guarded double doors at the far side of the courtyard. The mechs on guard saluted as Starscream and his cargo passed.

The hallways led on and on again. Wheeljack lost count of the interrogation rooms he saw. Or at least he assumed they were interrogation rooms. The other options were too awful to consider.

Left turn. Left turn. Right turn. Through the door. Right turn. Left turn.

Finally they stopped in front of a series of thick, coded doors. The security was ridiculous. 'Or maybe not so ridiculous' Wheeljack thought, 'if you stopped to think about the type of mechs that probably lie beyond.'

After quite a bit of scanning, password entering, and the like, the last door swooshed open permitting entrance to the two mechs. From the moment they stepped forward Wheeljack heard the whirs and clicks of priming weapons.

The hallway they entered was wider than most of the ones he had seen. Three cars could have easily found the space to drive side by side to each other. The walls that made up the hallway were clear, made of some sort of reinforced Plexiglas or plastic, showing the cells and mechs that resided behind them. But the walls that split the cells apart from each other and made up the backing of the rooms were darkened so that prisoners could not look at each other. Taking a closer look at the clear material, Wheeljack recognized the material it was made from. Pit, he had even helped make it! Few mechs knew that before the war he had been quite the inventor. True, most things he thought up had exploded in his face, but it was still something that he had invested a lot of time and joy in. The material was a cybertronian version of one way glass. Originally it was made for use in enforcer stations for interrogation rooms. Wheeljack had helped make it scanner proof. After multiple failures (ones that had left him in Ratchet's tender care) he had perfected it so that no scanners of any sort could penetrate through it. So anyone in the hallway could see the prisoners, but the prisoners could not anything but what was inside their cell. Doors made of thick, reinforced cybertronian metal provided a forbidding looking entrance to the rooms. Two guards stood at each door, their weapons currently trained on the newcomers.

Once again Wheeljack was pushed forward and he started walking down the hallway. The occupants of these cells were obviously high security prisoners. Each room was individually designed for the mech that lay within.

Blaster sat still, practically a statue, cross-legged in the center of what looked to be a soundproof cell. His optics were on, almost too bright. They moved constantly around the cell, endlessly searching for a way out.

Grimlock laid splayed out on a medical berth. An IV twisted from a pouch full of sedatives into the dinosaur forming mech. They hadn't even bothered strapping him to the berth. He wasn't going anywhere.

Red Alert stood with his arms spread apart and hands trapped to the walls. A cable snuck down from the ceiling and was connected into the back of his processor. His optics flickered unhealthily and sparks flew at random from the mech. He looked like he was in a perpetual state of glitching.

It was so hard to believe and to see. All of these formally fantastic mechs degraded to what they were now. And on Earth. On the very same planet that Optimus Prime and his elite team were on, was this Decepticon prison. Unknowingly Optimus waged war on Megatron, staying strong so that all their missing comrades could be avenged, when they were all here. On the same planet. Just a few miles beneath where he was standing.

Wheeljack could not tear himself from the thought. They were all here. All the mechs he had kept in mind when he was fighting. Slaughtering Decepticon after Decepticon in their name. Promising to find them, or at least their sparkless bodies one day.

But there were two mechs who stood out among the rest. Wheeljack had never expected to see them again. And now, he almost wished that he had never seen them. They were leaders. Mechs who only answered to Prime and occasionally not even him. Wheeljack could not even begin to understand how they had been captured.

The second and third commanders of Prime's army. Prowl and Jazz. Captured and locked away with next to no hope of ever escaping.

They were in cells opposite each other. Prowl on the right, Jazz on the left.

Prowl sat on what could have been a mockery of a throne. His wrists and ankles were welded onto the chair. Every socket available and even ones that Wheeljack was sure should not have existed were plugged into. Dozens of cords ranging in thickness and color snaked out of his body and into a monitor behind him. His once proud wings that had stood straight and stiff without ever wavering were gone. Ripped off based on the dried energon Wheeljack could just barely see on Prowl's shoulders. They were discarded in a heap beside the unmoving body.

Turning his head Wheeljack studied Jazz.

The saboteur was chained up and sitting cross legged on the floor. His wrists and ankles were cuffed to each other and chains leading from them were permanently situated into the floor. There was just enough chain length to allow him to stand up, but that was all. He seemed to be the only mech Wheeljack had seen so far that was noticeably injured. Certain armor plated were missing and he had cuts and burns ranging in a multitude of sizes throughout his body. Dried energon was smeared all over the mech. The creepiest part was that he was smiling. And not just smiling, Jazz looked like he had just pulled the biggest prank ever on the Prime and gotten away with it! He even seemed to be giggling.

Looking back and forth between his commanders Wheeljack noticed something. Something that should have been impossible given the circumstances. The SIC and TIC, despite having the one way glass separating them, were looking straight into each other's optics.

It wasn't like they just happened to be looking in each other's directions. That wouldn't be too weird, they were directly across the hall from each other. No, each of the bots were gazing directly at the other with an intensity that went beyond Wheeljack's ability to understand.

Once again Wheeljack was brought back to present world when Starscream shoved him hard. The force of the unexpected movement cause him to topple forward and was only saved from an unpleasant reunion of the metallic floor to his face by his greatly honed battle reflexes. Twisting so he landed on all four, Wheeljack quickly stood up and faced Starscream.

"I bid you welcome autobot." Starscream said, "To the pit in which you will spend the rest of your miserable life. Soundwave will be by later to decorate your cell to fit your worst nightmares." And with those lovely words he slammed the door to cell he had pushed Wheeljack into close.

Wheeljack sat down with his back pressed into a corner of the room. 'Well I guess this is it. Sorry Optimus for failing you guys. Did my best, guess it just wasn't enough.'

: Wheeljack come in. Wheeljack come in:

Wheeljack practically jumped out of his protoform when he heard his comm link buzz to life.

: Easy Wheeljack! We don' wanna make a scene righ' now:

: Jazz?! What? How-?:

'The details are not important Wheeljack. Just know that there is an underground community of autobots in this prison who are all connected by a special comm-link frequency only compatible to autobots.'

: Prowl? Wow, I'd never thought I would ever say this, but it is really good to hear your voice again:

: Aaaawww, see Prowler? The mechs did miss ya:

: Jazz this is not a conversation to be carried out at this moment:

: Fine, but I get ta bug ya abou' this when we get out:

: Um guys?: Wheeljack felt bad about having to say this but, :Last time I checked, we were locked up in a maximum security Decepticon prison with no hope of escape.:

: Oh yeah. May Ah have the honor?:

: Fine:

: Wheeljack: He could practically see the broad smile on Jazz's face : How would ya like ta be part o' the greatest prison break in the history o' Cybertron:


End file.
